Lara Shemali, LMHC

Lara Shemali is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) in Washington with 29 years of clinical experience. She focuses on common concerns like stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship difficulties. She also helps people navigating trauma and abuse, addictions, self-esteem struggles, and related life stressors.

She takes a straightforward, client-centered approach in sessions. Conversations aim to be open and free of judgment. The goal is practical tools that can reduce day-to-day stress and improve coping skills for anxiety or low mood.

In therapy she combines methods from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Emotionally-Focused Therapy, and client-centered and existential perspectives. That mix lets her address patterns of thinking and feeling while looking at values, connection, and meaning. Sessions tend to balance skill-building with deeper work on attachment, commitment, and relationship patterns.

Lara has helped people with a wide range of additional concerns, including abandonment and attachment issues, avoidant personality patterns, body image, chronic pain or illness, substance use, dissociation, and problems with communication or commitment. She also supports people exploring BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture without judgment.

She understands busy schedules and aims to coordinate sessions that fit work and life demands, including some evening and weekend availability when possible. To begin, people use the platform continue button on this profile and complete a short matching questionnaire to schedule based on availability.

Therapeutic approaches and how they translate to online work

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, focuses on clarifying personal values and taking small actions that align with what matters most. It helps with anxiety, depression, and life transitions by teaching skills to accept difficult feelings while moving toward meaningful goals. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at unhelpful thinking patterns and teaches practical tools to change thoughts and behaviors that maintain stress or low mood. This approach often involves simple exercises and homework between sessions.

Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will collaborate with each person to choose techniques that fit their goals and preferences. That may mean combining ACT, CBT, and client-centered listening to balance symptom relief and deeper exploration of relationship or attachment issues.

Session formats are not listed in the biography, so confirm current options before booking. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life, for example by removing commute time, allowing shorter check-ins during a break, or making evening appointments more accessible. Licensed professionals can still use the same ACT and CBT tools effectively at a distance, and sessions can be scheduled to match work and family responsibilities without promising a specific format.